Program & Abstracts
NetGames 2010 The 9th Workshop on Network & System Support for Games Copyright Š2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE. IEEE Catalog Number: CFP1076I-USB ISBN: 978-1-4244-8354-9
Preface It is our great honor to host NetGames 2010, “The 9th Annual Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games,” in conjunction with “The 7th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE 2010),” which will be held in Taiwan for the first time from 16 – 17 November 2010. For the purpose of achieving a tremendously successful workshop, our elite team of academic professional savants has devoted all our energetic efforts to conduct this international workshop. In addition to the elite team, we have to express our sincere gratitude to National Taipei University, Academia Sinica, National University of Singapore, KEIO-NUS CUTE Center, Taiwan Ministry of Education and Taiwan National Science Council for all their warm contribution to the success of this workshop. With their enthusiastic sponsorship, we definitely will organize NetGame2010 to bear the most splendid and outstanding harvests. The NetGames workshop brings together researchers and developers from academia and industry to present new research in understanding today’s networked games and in enabling the next generation of networked games. Submissions are sought in any area related to networked games. This year’s contributions mostly focus on the performance studies ranging from power/ energy issues to QoS issues to users. Researches of networked games in the cloud are another interesting topic attractively discussed this year. From 27 total submitted papers, eventually only 9 are accepted as Full Papers and 7 as Posters. Through the rigorous verification of our professional academic elite team, we have achieved the significant mission to identify the eminent agglomeration of global talents and their individual noble aspirations by utilizing advanced science and intellectual technology. We’re also pleased to include four contributions from a closely related workshop: The 3nd International Workshop on Massively Multiuser Virtual Environments (MMVE 2010), which will be co-located with NetGames 2010. We hope that the interactions between the two may spawn new insights and collaborations. We hereby humbly express our highest gratitude to all the participants and supporters who grace NetGames 2010 in Taiwan with the prosperous achievements. NetGames 2010 General Chairs Adrian Cheok Jiung-Yao Huang
Yutaka Ishibashi
KeioUniversity National Taipei University Nagoya Institute of Technology National University of Singapore
Contents Organizing Committee
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Program Committee
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Keynote Speakers
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Panelists
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Technical Program
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Abstracts Session 1 - Quality of Service A Measurement Study regarding Quality of Service and its Impact on Multiplayer Online Games
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Interactivity Improvement of Group Synchronization Control in Collaborative Haptic Play with Building Blocks
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Poster Session QoE Assessment of Interactivity and Fairness in First Person Shooting with Group Synchronization Control
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QoE Assessment in Networked Air Hockey Game with Haptic Media
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Improving Online Game Performance over IEEE 802.11n Networks
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User Behavior, Social Networking, and Playing Style in Online and Face to Face Bridge Communities
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A Real World Achievement System
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Unsynchronized Multiplayer Networked Games: Feasibility with Time Rewind
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Artificial Neural Network for Bot Detection System in MMOGs
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Session 2 - Mobile Games ARIVU: Power-Aware Middleware for Multiplayer Mobile Games
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Energy-Efficient Gaming on Mobile Devices using Dead Reckoningbased Power Management
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Session 3 - Distributed Gaming The Near-Term Feasibility of P2P MMOG’s
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A Protocol for Distributed Collision Detection
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Session 4 - Massively Multiplayer Online Games CAMEO: Enabling Social Networks for Massively Multiplayer Online Games through Continuous Analytics and Cloud Computing
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Cheat Detection Processing: A GPU versus CPU Comparison
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Scaling Online Games with Adaptive Interest Management in the Cloud
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General Information
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Travel Information
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Accommodation Information
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Local Tour
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Floor Plan
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Organizing Committee Steering Committee Maha Abdallah (University of Paris 6, France) Grenville Armitage (Swinburne University of Technology, Australia) Adrian Cheok (National University of Singapore, Singapore) Mark Claypool (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA) Wu-chang Feng (Portland State University, USA) Tristan Henderson (University of St Andrews, UK) Sugih Jamin (University of Michigan, USA) Anees Shaikh (IBM Watson Research, USA) Lars Wolf (Technische Universitat Braunschweig, Germany)
Honorary General Chair Chung-Weun Hou (President of National Taipei University, Taiwan)
General Chairs Adrian Cheok (Keio University, Japan & National University of Singapore, Singapore) Jiung-Yao Huang (National Taipei University, Taiwan) Yutaka Ishibashi (Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan)
Program Chairs Kuan-Ta Chen (Academia Sinica, Taiwan) Henry Been-Lirn Duh (National University of Singapore, Singapore) Jehn-Ruey Jiang (National Central University, Taiwan)
Publication Chairs Maha Abdallah (University of Paris 6, France) Shun-Yun Hu (Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
Publicity Chair Tainchi Lu (National Chiayi University, Taiwan)
Local Organizing Chair Shu-Shen Wai (National Taipei University, Taiwan)
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Program Committee Program Chairs Kuan-Ta Chen (Academia Sinica, Taiwan) Henry Been-Lirn Duh (National University of Singapore, Singapore) Jehn-Ruey Jiang (National Central University, Taiwan)
Technical Program Committee Maha Abdallah (University of Paris 6, France) Sharad Agarwal (Microsoft Research, USA) Grenville Armitage (Swinburne University, Australia) Mark Claypool (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA) Varvello Matteo (Alcatel-Lucent, USA) Wu-chang Feng (Portland State University, USA) Wu-chi Feng (Portland State University, USA) Stefano Ferretti (University di Bologna, Italy) Tobias Fritsch (Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany) Carsten Griwodz (University of Oslo, Norway) P책l Halvorsen (University of Oslo, Norway) Tristan Henderson (University of St Andrews, UK) Shun-Yun Hu (Academia Sinica, Taiwan) Polly Huang (National Taiwan University, Taiwan) John Miller (Microsoft Research, UK) Wei Tsang Ooi (National University of Singapore) Marius Preda (Institute TELECOM, France) Farzad Safaei (University of Wollongong, Australia) Travis Schluessler (Intel Corporation, USA) Shervin Shirmohammadi (University of Ottawa, Canada) Ruck Thawonmas (Ritsumeikan University, Japan) Lars Wolf (Technische Universitat Braunschweig, Germany) Roger Zimmermann (National University of Singapore, Singapore) Jong Won Kim (Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea) Tatsuhiro Yonekura (Ibaraki University, Japan) Keiichi Yasumoto (Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan) Shusuke Okamoto (Seikei University, Japan) Dai Hanawa (Seikei University, Japan) Hiroshi Fujinoki (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, USA)
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Keynote Speakers Zhigeng Pan Professor, State Key Lab of CAD&CG Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China Biography Zhigeng Pan received his Bachelor Degree and Master Degree from the Computer Science Department in 1987 and 1990 from Nanjing University respectively, and PhD Degree in 1993 from Zhejiang University. Since 1996, he has been working at the State Key Lab of CAD&CG as a full professor. Dr. Pan is a member of SIGGRAPH, Eurographics, IEEE, a senior member of the China Image and Graphics Association. He is on the director board of the International Society of VSMM (Virtual System and Multimedia), a member of IFIP Technical Committee on Entertainment Computing (acting as representative from China). Currently, he is the Editor-in-Chief of The International Journal of Virtual Reality. He is on the editorial board of International Journal of Image and Graphics, International Journal of CAD/CAM, Journal of Image and Graphics, Journal of CAD/CG, He is the program co-chair of EGMM’2004 (Eurographics workshop on Multimedia), Edutainment’2005 and VEonPC’2005, and is the program co-chair of Edutainment’2006, conference co-chair of ICAT 2006, Cyberworlds 2008.
Topic: Digital Olympic Museum and Sports Simulation Abstract Digital Olympic Museum is one promising form to demonstrate the history, culture and highlights of Olympic Games. To provide functionalities of both sports and entertainment, several sports simulation systems are developed. They are Virtual Bowling, Virtual Pingpang, and Virtual Network Marathon. Virtual network marathon is implemented as one fitness-oriented virtual network game. Framework of prototype is illustrated. Three sports modes meet different users’ requirements. Engine based scene and human edit provide users deeply immersing into virtual environment and enable real-time rendering. Synthesized synchronicity improves the game playability. Implementation of such system validates the feasibility to be used in digital Olympic museum.
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Mark Sung General Manager, Zillians Incorporation Biography Mark Sung is the General Manager for Zillians Inc., a startup aimed at developing GPU-based cloud computing solutions for simulating large scale virtual worlds. Mark graduated from Chiao-Tung University in Taiwan with an bachelor and master’s degree in computer science, specializing in MMOG development and high performance computing. In his 15 years of programming experience, Mark has played numerous leadership roles building teams and developing PC games. From 2002 to 2005, Mark was signed on a contract to serve as architect on a large military simulation project in Taiwan. In 2006, Mark joined Taiwan start-up competition “YEF” and became the finalist/delegate. Between 2007 and 2008, Mark joined IBM to work on file system for supercomputing at the Almaden Research Center in San Jose. By the end of 2008, drawing from his past research and industry experience, Mark founded Zillians Inc. to exploit GPU computing technology applied to online gaming with the aim of building the world’s most powerful app-platform for online game developers.
Topic: From Online Gaming to Cloud Computing Abstract Deploying an online game service can be a challenging and expensive endeavor. The cost of maintaining the real-time experience for end-users easily overruns the budget of many small and medium-sized game studios. Because of this, we have spent years to develop a complete MMO cloud computing solution based on patent pending GPU technology. With our high performance network technology, one GPU cluster can support over 10x the client capacity of current CPU-based solutions. This opens the door to more complex game design choices such as smarter AI, real-time physics, crowd simulation, pathfinding, and since game rules are enforced on the cloud - better game cheating protection. This cloud-based technology enables more game content to be created with less compromise and game developers can freely augment/ enrich their game worlds without the worry of performance degradation and the burden of deployment and hosting.
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Panelists Hermes Chang Vice President of Executive, MOTIMES Incorporation Hermes Chang is currently the Vice President of Executive of MOTIMES Incorporation, which is a startup company dedicated to mobile game development. He was the Director of Digital Gaming Division at Rock Mobile Corporation before joining MOTIMES in 2010. Prior to his career at Rock Mobile, Hermes was the Chief Operating Officer at Gemmy Planet Incorporation during 2002 and 2009, where he was responsible for mobile game service and content provisioning. Hermes obtained his Executive M.S. in Finance from City University of New York and his B.S. in Computer Science and Information Engineering from Tamkang University.
Yenwen Tempo Feng CEO, Liquable Incorporation Yenwen Feng is the CEO and co-founder of Gamelet. com, which is a flash based social game developer in Taiwan. Since 2008, Gamelet has developed dozens of games in different categories, like multi-player real-time shooting, puzzle, racing, simulation, and social games for many different social network platforms. Yenwen is very experienced in real-time messaging system, web games, and mobile applications developement. He also led the Gamelet team to win Yahoo! Open Hack Day Taiwan in 2008. Before Gamelet, Yenwen was the CEO and co-founder of willmobile Inc., which developed the best-selling mobile financial application in Taiwan. Yenwen holds an MS in Computer Science and a BS in Electrical Engineering from National Chiao Tung University.
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Gilbert Hsieh Director, GATE Lab, Gamania Digital Entertainment Gilbert Hsieh obtained his Master degree of computer science from University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, CA, US. His focus domain in USC was computer graphics, especially in 3D rendering. He worked in Silicon Valley to develop ERP/MRP system for three years, and then joined game industry for more than seven years. The game projects he involved include PS2, XBox, and PC online games. He ever worked as a software engineer, a project manager and a game producer. Now he is the director of Gamania Advanced Technology and Entertainment Lab (GATE Lab) in Gamania Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd. His current mission is to lead GATE Lab for doing research in new technologies and integrate these technologies into game engines as well as game development tools for teams in Gamania.
Mark Sung General Manager, Zillians Incorporation Mark Sung is the General Manager for Zillians Inc., a startup aimed at developing GPU-based cloud computing solutions for simulating large scale virtual worlds. Mark graduated from Chiao-Tung University in Taiwan with an bachelor and master’s degree in computer science, specializing in MMOG development and high performance computing. In his 15 years of programming experience, Mark has played numerous leadership roles building teams and developing PC games. From 2002 to 2005, Mark was signed on a contract to serve as architect on a large military simulation project in Taiwan. In 2006, Mark joined Taiwan start-up competition “YEF” and became the finalist/delegate. Between 2007 and 2008, Mark joined IBM to work on file system for supercomputing at the Almaden Research Center in San Jose. By the end of 2008, drawing from his past research and industry experience, Mark founded Zillians Inc. to exploit GPU computing technology applied to online gaming with the aim of building the world’s most powerful app-platform for online game developers.
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Technical Program
Tuesday, November 16, 2010 08:30 – 09:00
Registration
09:00 – 09:15
Opening Remarks
09:15 – 10:15
Keynote 1 – Digital Olympic Museum and Sports Simulation Professor Zhigeng Pan
10:15 - 10:45
Coffee Break 10:45 – 11:45
Keynote 2 – From Online Gaming to Cloud Computing Mark Sung 11:45 - 13:30
Lunch Break 13:30 – 15:00
Session 1 – Quality of Service Chair: Yutaka Ishibashi
A Measurement Study regarding Quality of Service and its Impact on Multiplayer Online Games Michael Bredel and Markus Fidle Interactivity Improvement of Group Synchronization Control in Collaborative Haptic Play with Building Blocks Pingguo Huang, Yutaka Ishibashi, Norishige Fukushima, and Shinji Sugawara 15:00 – 16:00
Poster Session
QoE Assessment of Interactivity and Fairness in First Person Shooting with Group Synchronization Control Yoshiaki Ida, Yutaka Ishibashi, Norishige Fukushima, and Shinji Sugawara
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QoE Assessment in Networked Air Hockey Game with Haptic Media Yuji Kusunose, Yutaka Ishibashi, Norisige Fukushima, and Shinji Sugawara Improving Online Game Performance over IEEE 802.11n Networks Hsiang-Ho Lin, Chih-Yu Wang, and Hung-Yu Wei User Behavior, Social Networking, and Playing Style in Online and Face to Face Bridge Communities Mihaela Balint, Vlad Posea, Alexandru Dimitriu, and Alexandru Iosup A Real World Achievement System Tonio Triebel, Sascha Schnaufer, Benjamin Guthier, Hendrik Lemelson, and Wolfgang Effelsberg Unsynchronized Multiplayer Networked Games: Feasibility with Time Rewind Hesam Rahimi, Saurabh Ratti, Ali Asghar Nazari Shirehjini, and Shervin Shirmohammadi Artificial Neural Network for Bot Detection System in MMOGs Kusno Prasetya and Zheng da Wu 16:00 – 17:00 Panel – Challengines in Network Game Design and Operation: An Industrial Perspective 17:00 – 18:00
Session 2 – Mobile Games Chair: Abdennour El Rhalibi
ARIVU: Power-Aware Middleware for Multiplayer Mobile Games Bhojan Anand, Karthik Thirugnanaman, Le Thanh Long, Duc-Dung Pham, and Akhihebbal L. Ananda Energy-Efficient Gaming on Mobile Devices using Dead Reckoning- based Power Management Cameron Harvey, Ahmed Hamza, and Cong Ly NetGames Banquet / ACE Reception
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19:00 -
Wednesday, November 17, 2010 09:00 – 09:30
ACE Opening Remarks
09:30 – 10:30
ACE Keynote 1 Prof. Steven Feiner 10:15 - 10:45
Coffee Break 11:00 – 12:00
Session 3 – Distributed Gaming Chair: Maha Abdallah
The Near-Term Feasibility of P2P MMOG’s John L. Miller and Jon Crowcroft A Protocol for Distributed Collision Detection Tom Ching Ling Chen and Clark Verbrugge 11:45 - 13:30
Lunch Break 14:00 – 15:30
Session 4 – Massively Multiplayer Online Games Chair: Alexandru Iosup
CAMEO: Enabling Social Networks for Massively Multiplayer Online Games through Continuous Analytics and Cloud Computing Alexandru Iosup, Adrian Lăscăteu, and Nicolae Ţăpuş Cheat Detection Processing: A GPU versus CPU Comparison Hakon Kvale Stensland, Martin Oinas Myrseth, Carsten Griwodz, and Pal Halvorsen Scaling Online Games with Adaptive Interest Management in the Cloud Mahdi Tayarani Najaran and Charles Krasic 15:30 – 15:45
Closing Remarks
16:00 – 18:00
ACE Creative Showcase / MMVE Workshop 18:30 -
Local Tour
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Abstracts Session 1 Time Venue
Quality of Service
13:30 – 15:00, November 16, 2010 Room 403, TWTC Nangang
A Measurement Study regarding Quality of Service and its Impact on Multiplayer Online Games Michael Bredel and Markus Fidle In this paper we study the impact of network parameters including delay, delay jitter, and packet loss on the outcome of multiplayer online games. We present a measurement methodology that allows for automating game experiments using an artificial intelligence that runs on the game clients and eliminates the need for human interaction. Thus, we were able to perform thousands of experiments with different network configurations to investigate their influence on the game outcome systematically. Complementary to previous studies, we provide a solid data basis for statistical analysis. We derive probabilistic models that allow for calculating score and win probabilities and verify their accuracy using our measurements. As a result we are able to predict the outcome statistics of an ideal game with respect to network conditions.
Interactivity Improvement of Group Synchronization Control in Collaborative Haptic Play with Building Blocks Pingguo Huang, Yutaka Ishibashi, Norishige Fukushima, and Shinji Sugawara This paper proposes a group synchronization control scheme with prediction in collaborative haptic play with building blocks. The scheme adjusts the output timing among multiple terminals and keeps the interactivity high. It outputs position information by predicting a future position later than the lastreceived position information by a xed amount of time. It also advances the output time of position information at each local terminal by the same amount of time. By experiment, we subjectively assess the output quality of haptic media so as to demonstrate the effectiveness of the scheme.
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Poster Session Time Venue
15:00 – 16:00, November 16, 2010 4F, TWTC Nangang
QoE Assessment of Interactivity and Fairness in First Person Shooting with Group Synchronization Control Yoshiaki Ida, Yutaka Ishibashi, Norishige Fukushima, and Shinji Sugawara In networked real-time games such as First Person Shooting (FPS) through a network which does not guarantee the Quality of Service (QoS), the consistency and fairness among players may be disturbed owing to network delay and jitter. To keep the consistency and fairness high, this paper carries out group synchronization control, which adjusts the output timing among multiple terminals. However, the interactivity slightly deteriorates under the control. By the Quality of Experience (QoE) assessment for FPS, this paper investigates the in uences of network delay and jitter and examines the in uence of a parameter of the group synchronization control on the interactivity and fairness.
QoE Assessment in Networked Air Hockey Game with Haptic Media Yuji Kusunose, Yutaka Ishibashi, Norisige Fukushima, and Shinji Sugawara This extended abstract assesses QoE (Quality of Experience) of output quality and interactivity in a networked air hockey game with haptic media. For consistency and causality, we employ the adaptive Δ-causality control scheme with adaptive dead-reckoning. We clarify the influence of network delay on QoE.
Improving Online Game Performance over IEEE 802.11n Networks Hsiang-Ho Lin, Chih-Yu Wang, and Hung-Yu Wei Multi-player online gaming is one of most popular applications on the Internet nowadays. Due to the mobility requirements and the growing popularity of WiFi services, a significant number of users access the Internet through
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IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN. Hence, the performance of highly interactive realtime online game under wireless environment is receiving attentions from researchers. In this paper, we investigate the efficiency of IEEE 802.11n MAC layer mechanisms in improving QoS (quality of service) of real-time FPS (firstperson-shooter) online games. By analyzing the results of conducted simulations under heavy background traffic, we show how network level performance and MOS (mean opinion score) are improved under different combinations of these mechanisms. Our analysis shows that TXOP (Transmission Opportunity) mechanism is the key to improve the networking fairness of real-time online games, and with reverse direction mechanism, MOS can be further enhanced.
User Behavior, Social Networking, and Playing Style in Online and Face to Face Bridge Communities Mihaela Balint, Vlad Posea, Alexandru Dimitriu, and Alexandru Iosup Online social games are Internet-based games that use the social networks formed by players to extend in-game functionality. For example, gamers participating in the BBO Fans community combine online bridge play with social networking. Despite an increase in online social gaming’s popularity currently, there exist over one million online bridge players, and of decades of research on social networks, the activity characteristics and the community structure of online social gaming remain relatively unknown. In this work we investigate and contrast these aspects for two bridge communities, BBO Fans (online) and Locomotiva (face to face). We propose the use of playing relationships instead of traditional social relationships such as friends and friends-of-friends. Using long-term, large-scale data we have collected from both the online and face to face bridge communities, we analyze user behavior, social network structure, and playing style in bridge communities. We find many similar characteristics in the two studied communities. Surprisingly, we also find more variation in the activity levels and fewer stable partnerships for the face to face bridge community.
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A Real World Achievement System Tonio Triebel, Sascha Schnaufer, Benjamin Guthier, Hendrik Lemelson, and Wolfgang Effelsberg We propose a system for the acquisition, maintenance, and communication of Real-World Achievements. The concept is based on online entertainment systems like Microsoft’s XBox Live or virtual worlds like World of Warcraft. We evaluate the impact of such a system in a virtual world and analyze the potential of a real-world implementation. We argue that it is desireable to grant and communicate points for real-world achievements in a computerized system. The system design is centered around a global database of achievement definitions and individual progress. Focus is put on flexibility to track achievementrelated actions and instantaneous notification of obtained achievements. We have tested our system at a major international conference, and conclude that our approach is suitable for implementing a Real World Achievement System.
Unsynchronized Multiplayer Networked Games: Feasibility with Time Rewind Hesam Rahimi, Saurabh Ratti, Ali Asghar Nazari Shirehjini, and Shervin Shirmohammadi Network lag is one of the most critical issues in multiplayer networked games since it leads to a lack of synchronization between remote players and degrades the quality of the game. Despite the abundant research on the subject of latency mitigation for games, network lag still cannot be controlled by the game, and remains an obstacle. This paper presents an entirely different approach to the issue of latency, proposing the concept of an unsynchronized networked game. Using our proposed FizzX game engine, players can continue to play and enjoy the game together, in spite of latency forcing the game instances to become desynchronized. FizzX also supports environment-wide time rewind player ability, an underexplored feature in multiplayer networked games. Testing of a FizzX based game shows that the effect of latency is generally constant rather than worsening as latency increases, and players are still able to play when game instances are unsynchronized. Additionally, the results show that the time rewind operations retain their inherent gameplay properties even under desynchronized circumstances.
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Artificial Neural Network for Bot Detection System in MMOGs Kusno Prasetya and Zheng da Wu Cheating is one of the biggest and constant problems in MMOGs. Games with high frequency of cheating will surely lose its appeal to genuine players who want to play the game. This is the reason why game provider these days put cheating prevention as one of the top priorities. Bot is just one way of cheating, but very efficient one. There are various methods to prevent cheating using bot in MMOGs. In this paper, we examine the potential of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to detect and recognize bot from human players. We start with the assumption that one bot always acts in the similar pattern in gameplay. Meanwhile, it is much rarer to see 2 players with similar gameplay pattern. The result of our experiment supports our initial hypothesis with the potential for future research in order to get better results.
Session 2 Time Venue
Mobile Games
17:00 – 18:00, November 16, 2010 Room 403, TWTC Nangang
ARIVU: Power-Aware Middleware for Multiplayer Mobile Games Bhojan Anand, Karthik Thirugnanaman, Le Thanh Long, DucDung Pham, and Akhihebbal L. Ananda With the improved processing power, graphic quality and high-speed wireless connection in recent generations of mobile phone, it looks more attractive than ever to introduce networked games on these devices. While device features and application resource requirements are rapidly growing, the battery technologies are not growing at the same pace. Networked Mobile games are a class of application, which consume higher levels of energy, as they are naturally more computationally intensive and use hardware components including audio, display and network to their fullest capacities. Therefore, the main concern is the limitation of the battery power of such portable devices to support the potentially long-hour of game play. In this paper we present ARIVU, a power aware middleware that dynamically controls the energy consumption of wireless interface based on the game and
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system state while maintaining the user experience. ARIVU provides the relevant API for game developers to easily integrate the middleware. We measure power consumption of game play over different wireless interfaces including 3.5G (HSPA), 802.11g and ZigBee 1. The middleware is able to save up to 40% of the total energy consumed by the wireless interfaces (802.11g and ZigBee). In addition, we show the efficiency of ZigBee interface as potential low power interface for networked game applications.
Energy-Efficient Gaming on Mobile Devices using Dead Reckoning- based Power Management Cameron Harvey, Ahmed Hamza, and Cong Ly We address the issue of how to reduce energy consumption of the wireless interface during multiplayer gaming sessions on mobile devices. Reducing energy consumed by the wireless interface is achieved by putting it in a lowenergy state when it is not used. We leverage the dead reckoning technique used in existing games. In dead reckoning, future locations of objects in a game are estimated based on their current locations and velocities. The difference between the extrapolated and true locations is known as the dead reckoning error. We propose an algorithm that employs the dead reckoning error rate to dynamically control the state of the wireless interface. We implement our algorithm into a dead reckoning simulator that is based on a real opensource game. Our experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve up to 36% energy savings for mobile devices. Our proposed algorithm is practical because it does not require much additional code and it allows easy integration with existing games.
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Session 3 Time Venue
Distributed Gaming
11:00 – 12:00, November 17, 2010 Room 403, TWTC Nangang
The Near-Term Feasibility of P2P MMOG’s John L. Miller and Jon Crowcroft Broadly deployed distributed virtual environments (DVE’s) are based upon client-server architectures. Significant research over the last decade proposes a variety of distributed topologies for message propagation to enhance scalability and performance. We ran simulations using traces from World of Warcraft (WoW) and typical broadband speeds, and found that DVE’s such as WoW could not employ P2P message propagation schemes. We found pure P2P pub-sub solutions would occasionally saturate residential broadband connections, and would result in average latency more than 10x greater than clientserver solutions. To our surprise, we discovered message aggregation before transmission can not only reduce bandwidth requirements, but also reduce latency in both client-server and P2P message propagation schemes.
A Protocol for Distributed Collision Detection Tom Ching Ling Chen and Clark Verbrugge Scalability of multiplayer games can be improved by client-side processing of game actions. Consistency becomes a concern, however, in the case of unpredictable but important events such as object interactions. We propose here a new motion-lock protocol for distributed collision detection and resolution. The motion-lock protocol improves performance of motion prediction by giving stations time to communicate and agree on the detected collisions. This reduces the divergence of distributed object states and post-collision trajectories. Offline and online simulation results show the motion-lock protocol results in qualitative and quantitative improvements to consistency, with negligible network impact and a minimal sacrifice in the responsiveness of player controls. Our design can be used to hide latency and reduce server load in current multiplayer online games, improving scalability and furthering fully distributed designs.
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Session 4 Time Venue
Massively Multiplayer Online Games
14:00 – 15:30, November 17, 2010 Room 403, TWTC Nangang
CAMEO: Enabling Social Networks for Massively Multiplayer Online Games through Continuous Analytics and Cloud Computing Alexandru Iosup, Adrian Lăscăteu, and Nicolae Ţăpuş Millions of people play Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) and participate in the social networks built around MMOGs daily. These players turn into a collaborative community to exchange game news, advice, and expertise, but in return expect support such as player reports and clan statistics. Thus, the MMOG social networks need to collect and analyze MMOG data, in a process of continuous MMOG analytics. With the appearance of cloud computing, it has become attractive to use on-demand resources to run automated MMOG data analytics tools. In this work we present CAMEO, an architecture for Continuous Analytics for Massively multiplayEr Online games on cloud resources. Our architecture provides various mechanisms for MMOG data collection and continuous analytics of a predetermined accuracy in real settings. We implement and deploy CAMEO to perform continuous analytics on data from RuneScape, a popular MMOG. Using resources from various real clouds, including the commercial cloud of Amazon, CAMEO can analyze the characteristics of a community of over 3,000,000 active players, and follow the progress of 500,000 of these players for over a week. Thus, we show evidence that CAMEO can support the social networks built around MMOGs.
Cheat Detection Processing: A GPU versus CPU Comparison Hakon Kvale Stensland, Martin Oinas Myrseth, Carsten Griwodz, and Pal Halvorsen In modern online multi-player games, game providers are struggling to keep up with the many different types of cheating. Cheat detection is a task that requires a lot of computational resources. Advances made within the field of heterogeneous computing architectures, such as graphics processing units (GPUs), have given developers easier access to considerably more computational resources, enabling a new approach to solving this issue. In this paper
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we have developed a small game simulator that includes a customizable physical engine and a cheat detection mechanism that checks the physical model used by the game. To make sure that the mechanisms are fair to all players, they are executed on the server side of the game system. We investigate the advantages of implementing the cheat detection mechanisms on a GPU using the Nvidia CUDA framework, and we compare the GPU implementation of the cheat detection mechanism with a CPU implementation. The results obtained from the simulations show that offloading the cheat detection mechanisms to the GPU reduces the time spent on cheat detection, enabling the servers to support a larger number of clients.
Scaling Online Games with Adaptive Interest Management in the Cloud Mahdi Tayarani Najaran and Charles Krasic Traditional client-server online games do not scale well in terms of the number of players they can support. Most of this is due to the quadratic growth of bandwidth requirements as the number of players increases, and the limitations on processing power of any single machine. Considering the excitement a firstperson shooter (FPS) game can provide by bringing an epic scale online battle to real life, we present a scalable cloudbased architecture able to host hundreds of players in an online FPS game. We host the game in a cloud, rather than on a single machine, and reduce aggregate bandwidth requirements of the game by using a scalable publish-subscribe subsystem. Each player expresses its preference about other players using an interest set, and receives updates accordingly. Our evaluations, both in a testbed and cloud environment, show our architecture can scale to hundreds of players, an order of magnitude more players than state-of-the-art FPS game servers can currently support.
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General Information Conference Venue Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall (TWTC Nangang) No.1, Jingmao 2nd Rd., Nangang District, Taipei City 11568, Taiwan
Nearest MRT Stations • •
Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Station (Wenhu Line) Nangang Station (Bannan Line)(Express buses directly to Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Station)
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Travel Information Currency Only local currency New Taiwan Dollars (NT$) are accepted in all stores and taxi. The current exchange rate is US$ 1 ≒ NT$ 30.8.
Taipei City Scenic Guide
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National Palace Museum Widely acknowledged as the world’s finest collection of traditional Chinese art, long-term exhibits at the National Palace Museum include ceramics, jades, bronzes, lacquer ware, paintings, calligraphy and textiles, with short-term exhibits changing periodically to accommodate a vast collection of archived material. Works labelled in Chinese / Japanese / English. Interpreters and self-guided cassette tours available. Address and Opening Hours Address: 221, Sec 2, Chih-shan Rd., Taipei Tel: +886-2-2881-2021 / Fax: +886-2-2882-1440 Opening Hours: 09:00-17:00 daily Transportation Take MRT (Danshui Line) to the Shilin Station and take the Red 30 bus to the Museum. Buses 255, 304, Minibus 18, Minibus 19, and Culture Bus 101 also stop at the base of the Museum plaza.
Shilin Night Market Shilin Night Market is one of the popular night markets of Taipei. Previously Shilin Night Market could be divided into two areas: one if the market opposite of Zhihshan Temple and the other is Yangming theater which includes the areas from Anping Street, to Tatung Road, and Wenlin Road. Actually these two sections are connected. Local dishes, clothing stores, shoe stores, sneaker stores, accessory stores and various kind of stalls are everywhere here. But the most important thing is the cheap price. Transportation Take MRT (Danshui Line) to the Jiantan Station.
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Xinyi Planning District Taipei has a large number of department stores and market complexes, which constitute an index of each area’s prosperity. The presence of several department stores has made Taipei yielding several bustling commercial areas. Hsinyi District and Asia World Circle contain several boutiques, restaurants as well. The extended hinterland offers the business opportunities of nearby five-star hotels and the convenience of the MRT station, yielding excellent shopping and gourmet dining. Tienmu is an exotic shopping district in Taipei. There are stores carry imported groceries and export garments, fancy restaurants, and second-hand clothes shops. That’s why a lot of foreigners like to live here in Taipei. Transportation Take MRT (Bannan Line) to the Taipei City Hall Station and continue by shuttle bus or on foot.
Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall The imposing Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall occupies the place of honour in a park-like setting of 250,000 square metres and contains exhibition rooms, a film theatre, two art galleries, a library and an audio-visual centre. Surrounded by landscaped gardens and ponds, and fronted by an immense open square, the site also holds the palatial National Concert Hall and National Theatre. Transportation Taipei City Buses 15, 18, 20, 22, 37, 204, 208, 214, 236, 248, 249, 251, 252, 261, 263, 270, 293, 297, 621, 623, 630, 651. Take MRT (Danshui or Nanshijiao Line) and get off at CKS Memorial Hall Station.
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Accommodation The Sherwood Taipei With its introduction by The Sherwood Tapei in 1990, has the distinction of being the first 5-star hotel in Taiwan to be owned by domestic entrepreneurs. Its elegant European-sytle adornment, luxurious display of antique Chinese and Western fumlture, sophisticated business and leisure facilities, personalized service, and breathtaking selection of food and beverages, have all played an integral part to The Sherwood Tapei being admitted as a member of “The Leading Hotels of the World.” The Sherwood Taipei has been both a leader and significant contributor to the service industry in Taiwan. And, as a member of “The Leading Hotels of the World,” The Sherwood Taipei strives to uphold its creed to continue to provide superb quality in services and amenities. It is also our belief that: your commendation is our gresatest satisfaction. Address and Telphone Address: 111, Sec. 3, Min Sheng E Road, Taipei Tel: +886-2-2718-1188 Transportation Take MRT (Wenhu Line) to the Chungshan Junior High School Station.
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Grand Victoria Hotel The latest addition to the ever-changing landscape of Taipei City, Grand Victoria Hotel is the quintessential masterpiece of modern luxury, representing a fusion of classic Victorian architecture of the 19th century with contemporary elements of the 21st century. While classic Victorian architecture, an English-styled bell tower, customized LED lighting, and an elegant wedding garden reminiscent of distant lands comprise the grand exterior of the Grand Victoria Hotel, elegant white granites, lavish decorations, and international caliber boutique stores make up an exceptional interior like none others. Address and Telphone Address: 168, Jing Ye 4th Rd, Taipei Tel: +886-2-8502-0000 / Fax: +886-2-8502-0005 Transportation Take the MRT (Wenhu Line) to the Jiannan Rd. Station.
Brother Hotel 250 neat rooms of various sizes, elegant, quiet, clean and comfortable; and even a smaller single room being supplied with a double bed. We uniquely keep using floor boys to provide better service and extra hospitality. Besides, a ceaseless day-andnight patrolling system is thoroughly executed for guests’ safety purpose. Address and Telphone Address: 255, Sec. 3, Nan-jing East Road, Taipei Tel: +886-2-2712-3456 / Fax: +886-2-2717-3334 Transportation Take MRT (Wenhu Line) to the Nanjing E. Rd. Station.
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Local Tour Hot Spots: 1. Shilin Night Market 2. Longshan Temple & Huaxi Street Night Market Transportation: By the MRT Date & Time: 18:30 – 21:00, Nov 17 Meeting Place: West Door, 1F, TWTC Nangang
Shilin Night Market Shilin Night Market is the one of the largest night markets in Taipei. The market is centered on Yangming Theater and Cicheng Temple. The night market is formed by many prosperous shops on Wenlin Road, Dadong Road and Danan Road, etc. Among them, Shilin Market was built as early as in 1899 and the market is famous for various snacks and eatery. Many visitors have come to Shilin Night Market to enjoy the delicious foods, such as large pancake enfolding small pancake, hot pot on stone or Shilin sausage. Shilin Night Market has become a renowned place for great foods. Shilin Night Market covers a large area. When one walks in the turning lanes and alleys, he (she) would often find something unexpected. The night market is packed with many people during holidays. We can often see families carrying many things from shopping and enjoying good meals. Their satisfaction is fully shown from their happy expressions. Transportation (Take about 40 to 50 minutes) 1. Take bus from MRT Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Station to MRT Nangang Station. (The bus stop is just next to the MRT Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Station Exit 4.) 2. Take MRT (Bannan Line) from Nangang Station to Taipei Main Sta-
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tion Station, and then transfer to take MRT (Danshui Line). 3. Take MRT (Danshui Line) and get off at Jiantan Station, and walk out from Exit 1. Shilin Night Market is on the left side of the station.
Longshan Temple & Huaxi Street Night Market Longshan Temple is a famous old temple in Taiwan. It is for worshiping Guanshiyin Buddha and other divine spirits. Longshan Temple is facing the South. Its architecture is a threesection design in shape. There are the front hall, the rear hall and the right/ left dragons protecting the middle hall. The layout is square and serene. The temple was built in Qianlong 5th year in Qing Dynasty. Due to natural disaster and damages caused by men, the temple was restored for several times. The doors, beams, and poles are beautifully decorated. The temple has many Chinese poems, verses and lyrics on signs. These add a touch of literature in addition to the religious and sightseeing value. There are great decorative lamp fairs and temple activities on historical festivals. On each 1st and 15th day each month of lunar year, regular visitors will come to the temple for worship ceremony. The temple attracts many people. At normal times, there are domestic/foreign tourists visiting the temple. Longshan Temple is not only a temple, a sightseeing attraction, but also a second-degree historical site. There are traditional streets/shops, antique shops, Buddhists article shops, and Chinese medicine shops surrounding the temple. These places are great to visit due to their richness in folk art.
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Huaxi Street Night Market is located nearby Longshan Temple. The night market, together with night markets on Guangzhou Street, Wuzhou Street and Xichang Street, has formed a large unique market. Various commodities are sold here and it is one of the favored sites of tourists. In the early years, Huaxi Street is famous for congregated porno shops. After prostitution is banned by Taipei City Government, the sightseeing quality is greatly uplifted and the place becomes safer. A Chinese traditional post stands at the entrance of Huaxi Street Night Market. Chinese traditional lamps are hung along the street. There are old, historical shops along the street that provide great dishes. For example, the Danzai noodle restaurant, the favorite of Japanese tourists, started its business here. Other great dishes like meat soup and squid soup attract many people. In the summer, chopped ice plates and fresh juice are in great demand. In the winter, dishes with Chinese medicine attract many visitors. Transportation (Take about 30 minutes) 1. Take bus from MRT Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Station to MRT Nangang Station. (The bus stop is just next to the MRT Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Station Exit 4.) 2. Take MRT (Bannan Line) and get off at Longshan Temple Station, and walk out from Exit 1. 3. Head west on Section 3, Heping West Rd. toward Section1, Xiyuan Rd. Longshan Temple is on the right side.
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Floor Plan
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Program Time
November 16, 2010
Venue
08:30 - 09:00
Registration
09:00 - 09:15
Opening Remarks
403
09:15 - 10:15
Keynote 1 - Digital Olympic Museum and Sports Simulation Prof. Zhigeng Pan
403
10:15 - 10:45 10:45 - 11:45
Coffee Break Keynote 2 - From Online Gaming to Cloud Computing Mark Sung
403
11:45 - 13:30
Lunch Break
13:30 - 15:00
Session 1 - Quality of Service
15:00 - 16:00
Poster Session
16:00 - 17:00
Panel - Challengines in Network Game Design and Operation: An Industrial Perspective
403
17:00 - 18:00
Session 2 - Mobile Games
403
19:00 -
NetGames Banquet / ACE Reception
3F
Time
403
November 17, 2010
09:00 - 09:30
ACE Opening Remarks
402
09:30 - 10:30
ACE Keynote 1
402
10:30 - 11:00
Coffee Break
11:00 - 12:00
Session 3 - Distributed Gaming
12:00 - 14:00
Lunch Break
14:00 - 15:30
Session 4 - Massively Multiplayer Online Games
403
15:30 - 15:45
Closing Remarks
403
ACE Creative Showcase
401
MMVE Workshop
403
403
16:00 - 18:00 18:30 -
Local Tours